Help! I’ve caught a case of the yips!

Whats a yip you ask?  A yip is a highly undesirable result from your golf swing that comes out of nowhere to ruin your day. It’s like your golf swing caught a virus that’s hard to get rid of. It can be a shank that goes sideways, a top that dribbles 5 yards in front of you, a pop fly with your driver, a bladed chip that zips across the green etc. Just when you think it was a one time fluke it happens again.  That’s when you know you got the yips.

The yips can happen to anyone, even really good golfers.  The real question is how do you go about fixing this incredibly frustrating new miss?

Let’s start with getting rid of the idea that there is one perfect swing when we hit a good shot.  The reality is there is a lot of variation in our “good swings” from speed, height, spin, centeredness of contact etc.  The yips arrive when we get a large miss from centeredness of contact, what’s interesting is we often don’t realize just how close some of our “good shots” actually were to being  shanks if you aren’t paying close attention to exact strike location.  Overtime you may have trained your brain to believe you were hitting the center of the clubface when in reality you may have been hitting towards the heel side of the clubs sweet spot.

Now the first course of action is to figure out exactly where you are making contact with the ball.  Oh you never practice?  Let’s start with a regular practice routine that involves some kind of feedback on your strike location.

Do you practice and play all the time?  Whether you like it or not, whether you are trying to make a swing change or not, your swing is constantly changing ever so slightly. It’s your daily routine, your practice routine, your workout routine, your nutrition that is shaping the rhythm of your swing day in and day out.  Keeping your swing more consistent should involve a regular fitness routine of some sort.  Sometimes an extended travel day, or sleeping awkwardly may change your swing just enough to give you the yips but a regular fitness mobility routine is a great way to reduce the likelihood of this happening as well as reduce the likelihood of injury.

Ultimately when you have the yips we have to trick your brain back the opposite way.   What do I mean by the opposite way?  If you are shanking the ball you are hitting the ball too close to the hosel.  The correction will be to actually try to hit some shots off the toe initially.  Once we have successfully hit a few shots off the toe we can progress our focus to more of the center contact again.  Often a setup tweak or a grip tweak is a great way to help facilitate this change but bottom line is you got to get your reps in for it to stick!  I use 500 good reps as a benchmark target to solidify a change.  

If you need a place to get your reps in come on into Denver Golf Performance for $15 30-minute trackman rentals and $25 60-minute rentals.  We also have a gym equipped with TPI fitness professionals ready to get you and keep you dialed in with a customized fitness routine.